October 12, 2006

I'm on yet another of my business trips, this time in Las Vegas. So I'm three hours removed from Eastern Standard Time and several light years removed, given the hectic schedule at these things, from what's going on in baseball.

So imagine my shock when I turned on the ALCS Game 2 tonight during a few free moments while I munched on room service in my hotel room and the FOX sportscasters, showing a picture of Corey Lidle onscreen with birth and death dates, the death date reading "2006".

"As I'm sure you've heard by now..." one of the anchors said.

I may have been the last person in the Western Hemisphere to hear the news. I called Sam to basically exclaim "What?!?" and "I know, huh?" back and forth at each other.

I mean, the more I read about it, the crazier and less comprehensible the story gets. One story I read said four people were killed, another said two--Lidle and his flight instructor. One story has the apartment building at 50 stories, another at 40. One story says the 20th floor, another says the 30th floor.

They all agree on the following details:

The plane, flying north over the East River, along the usual flight corridor, came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire - a red-brick tower overlooking the river - with a loud bang. It touched off a raging fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two adjoining floors.(Guardian Unlimited)

The twin-engine plane came through a hazy, cloudy sky and hit The Belaire -- a red-brick tower overlooking the East River, about five miles from the World Trade Center -- with a loud bang, touching off a raging fire that cast a pillar of black smoke over the city and sent flames shooting from four windows on two adjoining floors.

ABC News reported that after Lidle's plane departed an airport in Teterboro, N.J., took a normal flight pattern down the Hudson River, appeared to have circled the Statue of Liberty, headed up the East River and fell off the radar at about 59th Street. (NYYFans.com)

Worse:

Compton said Lidle's wife, Melanie, and their 6-year-old son Christopher had left New York for Los Angeles before the accident, and likely had no way of learning of the news. According to Compton, a priest planned to meet the flight at Los Angeles International Airport and break the news to Melanie Lidle that her life is forever changed.

"She doesn't know," Compton said. "She's on a plane heading home. She has no clue." (ESPN)

I mean...what are the odds? Not only of this happening, a plane crashing into a Manhattan building too close for comfort to 9/11, but the odds of a New York Yankees pitcher being at the helm?

It's one of those events where, if someone had told you yesterday it would happen, you'd have refused to believe it. If they put it in a book or movie, it would be too far-fetched. But it happened. A small plane piloted by a starting pitcher for the New York Yankees crashed into an apartment building this morning. I still can't quite comprehend it.

My condolences, of course, to Lidle's family (even as, of course, we in the baseball public completely lionize the story, even as we in the baseball public were given more notice of her husband's death than his wife ultimately got). My condolences to the New York Yankees and their fans, who somehow have had this very same tragedy visited upon them twice in the same half-century, another thing with perhaps even slimmer odds than the events of this morning.

If there's any consolation to be had in a truly twisted series of events, it's perhaps to be found in the following quote from Lidle, which has been repeated nearly constantly today whenever the story is discussed again:

"The flying?'' the 34-year-old Lidle, who had a home near Los Angeles, told The Philadelphia Inquirer this summer. "I'm not worried about it. I'm safe up there. I feel very comfortable with my abilities flying an airplane.''

"No matter what's going on in your life, when you get up in that plane, everything's gone."

October 06, 2006

"I do believe good pitching stops good hitting, but I didn't believe that good pitching could stop great hitting."

GOD JOE MORGAN SUCKS.

It's official, after watching the Mets-Dodgers last night with only passing interest, that I am actually--for the duration of this postseason at least--a Tigers fan.

I am into this Yankees-Tigers game tonight. Especially since the ESPN broadcast tools are so, so clearly pulling for the Yankees. It's really pretty disgusting, actually. They keep repeating, in disbelief, that Kenny Rogers "has lost his last seven decisions against the Yankees", as if that would somehow invoke the gods to come and rescue their poor pinstripers.

He’s a great baseball player. I get it. I GET IT. I acknowledge it. DEREK JETER IS REALLY GOOD AT BASEBALL. He can hold a big stick of shaped wood and swing it around and make contact with a small white ball in a fashion that we have arbitrarily decided is meaningful, and he can also run around an arbitrarily designated area and catch said small white ball, and he can do these things better than 99.998% of humanity while getting paid vast sums of money for his troubles. He is the AWSUMEST!!11! Kids love him, fellow players love him, teammates love him, ladies love him, announcers love him long time. Derek Jeter: good at what he does.

Now SHUT UP.

But it's not just confined to Jeter, tonight. Joe Morgan and Jon Miller are just...their palpable dismay whenever Rogers strikes out another Yankees hitter...the way they gnitpick about how batting average isn't the best statistic to measure hitting when it's pointed out to them that the Yankees lineup that they call "the greatest in history" doesn't have the highest batting average in history, but then turn around and tout batting average as a measure of greatness when ballwashing Yankees players...

I just can't say this enough. If you can't call an impartial game, don't be a national broadcaster.

Ernie Halwell was in the booth with the boys for an inning or so tonight, which made it even more embarrassing for them, I think. Then again, it also felt as if Halwell was simply more suited to speaking to a more informed audience--and a more captive one; today's cable sports analysts do have a different task at hand with all the choices for entertainment on and off television for people, and the waning interest in the game.

Anyway. The Tigers. I am excited about the Tigers. I believe that most of the time, whoever wins the second game of a series has the advantage, because if that team didn't win the first game they're proving themselves a worthy opponent, and if that team did win the first game, they're taking a sizeable opening advantage, especially in a five-game series. The second game is all-important, and the Tigers won it yesterday. They won it from behind, on the road, yesterday.

In fairness, no amount of haterade is going to change the fact that the Yankees made the postseason and the Red Sox didn't. Even if they lose, they still made it, and we didn't. So take my commentary here with a grain of salt, because yes, the Yankees beat my team and there's nothing I can really say about it.

But GOD I AM PRAYING FOR THEM NOT TO WIN. It would be awful if they went on, painful if they won the Pennant, unbearable if they won it all this year. Dear God, is my prayer every night, please do not let the Mother Fucking Yankees win the World Series this year. I think if thoughts could be seen, that collective message would be blinking into space from the American Northeast.

So really I'm a Tigers fan because I'm a "Whoever's Playing the Yankees" fan. And because the National League teams are out, because none of them are as cute as the Astros, and because they are all basically just dicking around waiting to find out which American League team is going to beat them. And because Oakland, I have decided, is to the Red Sox as the Steelers are to the Patriots--the clash of cultures between fan bases has the same feeling. And because of Sam. And because, as with the White Sox last year, I looked at the Tigers this year around midseason and they had the same glow. It's hard to prove, and hard to describe, but I've believed from at least midseason--even when the Tigers faltered--that this is probably the Tigers' year. My similar feeling about the White Sox last year turned out to be dead on--let's hope that holds true this time as well.

This is the first baseball postseason I've paid attention to in which the Red Sox did not play. It's an odd feeling. Like crashing a party where you weren't invited.

Last night Julia and I watched the Dodgers / Mets game. She paid attention to it more than I did--I kept watching a play here and there, and then losing interest. It was strange.

The plays I did watch, the ones I did pay attention to, though...and the players...it seemed like every one of them had a .300 batting average. Several catches right at the outfield wall kept the game excruciatingly (for the fans at Shea Stadium) scoreless for several innings. Tommy Glavine, who is from Billerica, and who at this point looks more like he should be in the broadcast booth than still pitching, spun a beauty for the Mets. It was a higher level of baseball than the one I'd been watching for the last couple of months, but I missed the Red Sox.

I am a Red Sox bigot. I will freely admit this. Those posters and postcards you sometimes see of the "view from Boston" where everything beyond Worcester is California and Japan are sometimes pretty close to my real worldview. I know players around the league in relation to what they have done for or against the Red Sox; I know teams in relation to how much or how little they challenge the Red Sox historically. What I remember about Carlos Beltran, for example, is the hot stove season in which the radio wires in Boston were aglow with buzz about acquiring him from the Houston Astros.

So there was, of course, Gump, and Nomar, and even Derek, chewing away on something in the Dodgers dugout. Pedro's sidelined. Tommy Glavine's from Billerica. Everyone else was a stranger to me. Well...except Buelly, who made a miraculous appearance at the dugout rail, curling his hands into his jacket sleeves and huddling into himself in the chilly autumn air. I'm sorry...you can't just take my Buelly away for months and months and then give me something like that all at once come October. That just ain't right.

We went out for a cigarette mid-game, and when we came back, it was the bottom of the sixth, bases loaded, two outs. The pitching coach and infielders were gathered around the Dodgers' relief pitcher Brett Tomko; sweat was pouring down his face. His sandy blonde hair was standing out from his neck in wet curls with all the sweat. He was puffing out his cheeks and blowing to try to calm himself, rubbing up the ball frantically.

Eventually, Tomko would be relieved (or not) by Mark Hendrickson, in my opinion a dead ringer for John Smoltz except without the same ability (at least last night) to get outs, the Mets would score two more runs, and that would essentially be the ball game. But it was that moment with Tomko, hyperventilating, hands working over the ball, he and everyone around him on the mound and everyone in the stands looking like they were going to blow chunks at any moment, that really made me feel acutely what I was missing.

Of course, things have been hectic and intense with me lately in virtually all other areas of my life. It's not good, it's not bad, but it's...a lot. A lot is going on right now, and it doesn't look to stop until November. I have to say the Red Sox may have done me a favor by making it so that I didn't have to add playoff baseball intensity, worry, aggravation, and sleeplessness on top of everything else.

Or as Julia put it, "It's good of the Red Sox to take some time off this year and let our ulcers heal over."

P.S. Please see also the footage linked here of Joel Zumaya's performance yesterday against the Yankees. I am hoping Sam is still alive after that game.

September 03, 2006

Julia had organized a ladies' night at the ballpark--the Spinners' ballpark, LaLacheur Field, within walking distance from her house out here in Lowell. There were six of us, and we sat in the bleachers just outside first base, surrounded mostly by families with young children. Aside from the rugrats, most of the people at LaLacheur appeared to be regulars. This was the last game of the Spinners' season, against the Staten Island Yankees.

Among us was Anne, who is a Yankees fan. Judging by her requests that the Red Sox fans among us treat her kindly, I think Julia was afraid we'd fight with knives. But I actually spent most of the game talking to Anne about Yankees, Red Sox, Yankees and Red Sox, Steinbrenner, A-Rod, Manny and Papi, the Papel-kids, and baseball in general, and she and I both kept score, holding down the scoring fort for the other when one of us got up for something.

There was, as you can imagine, a totally different vibe from Fenway, where I'd been just the night before. I hadn't expected the players themselves to seem smaller, but they did, although that was adorable. Especially the Major-League-shortstop-sized kid who was stamping around in catchers' gear.

The starting pitcher for the home team was Jeff Farrell, a kid who's struggled even in Class A, with a 1-7 record and an ERA of 7.05. He let up three runs in the first inning to the old-timey-looking SI Yankees, and the Spinners eventually lost, 10-5, thanks not only to Farrell but to a whole bunch of mind-boggling errors, mostly by infielders.

But it was a minor-league game--VERY minor league at Class A--and so there were more interesting things to watch than the track meet on the basepaths. There was the typical between-innings entertainment like Frisbee dogs and my mom's favorite, the Dizzy Bat race, and the movie clips they showed on a screen mounted on the outfield wall. And the general charm of the tiny ballplayers, who did many things differently from the big leaguers I'm used to, like star in commercials for the souvenir shop on the outfield screen between innings or do their pre-game warmups in a big group under the supervision of a coach. Some of the big-leaguers we know and love also made unexpected appearances, in the form of more clips on the screen, most of them directly encouraging the Class A kids to be good. It was like baseball kindergarten. I loved it.

The only glimpse I caught of Joshua Papelbon, the big draw at this park, was during pre-game goofing around and in the souvenir store commercial. The commercial was mostly a souvenir-shop guy hollering like a used-car salesman about the end-of-year clearance sale, with some cuts to one of the other Spinners (I think Many Arambaras) and Joshua, whose only action in the commercial was to throw a balled-up T-shirt across the room at the camera. He did this in a laid-back, slightly bemused way that definitely reminded me of his brother.

The story of those boys amazes me. In one family, and one generation, you have Jonathan, rookie phenom closer for the Red Sox, Joshua, closer draftee in the Red Sox farm system, and his twin Jeremy, drafted by the Cubs as...a closer. Also? Jonathan's a power righty, Joshua's a submariner, and Jeremy's a lefty.

So clearly some very special gene for baseball closer runs in their family. Julia and I have agreed, talking about this, that some sort of study should be commissioned immediately. Blood should be drawn from both these boys' parents as well as their offspring in order to isolate the gene. Julia and I also agreed that we would not be opposed to a Papel-farm, in which specially cloned Papel-babies would be raised by Buddhist monks and taught baseball, kung fu, and Zen meditation.

Then Jonathan showed up on the screen doing the Chicken Dance.

Yes. At the Spinners games, they play the Chicken Dance song and show different people from the Red Sox organization, from Tom Caron to clubhouse guys, demonstrating the dance on that outfield screen. And so, long story short, Jonathan Papelbon did the Chicken Dance right in front of me. My squeak could only be heard by the Frisbee dogs.

And then, no sooner had I finished fantasizing about Papel-eugenics, delighting in the fact that 2/3 of the current Papelbon generation was in our system, and squeaking over Jonathan doing the Chicken Dance, than my phone started to vibrate in my pocket.

The tone of my "What." after the first thing my Dad said from the other end of the line was enough to get the attention of everyone with me immediately. They said later that my voice and facial expression at first made them think there was an emergency in my family. I feel pretty bad about that, since it's a pretty tragic loss of perspective to be capable of that much horror about news of a ballplayer, but, well, that's what happened.

After I hung up the phone, the whole group of girls looked at me expectantly.

"Jonathan's hurt."

Immediately, Julia's head was in her hands. Ky was instantly text messaging her boyfriend, a big Red Sox fan.

From then on, while the Spinners completed their loss and then while we walked to Julia's house past CultureFest events, and then at Julia's shooting the shit with her and Ky, I kept forgetting about it, and then thinking about it again. And again. And again.

My sense of Jonathan's rarity and its attendant fragility has never been far from my mind throughout this entire tenure with the Red Sox. I still remember when he tweaked a leg muscle back in May, how gingerly and carefully the trainers and Francona and his fellow players approached him out on the mound, how totally silent the park was, including Iain and me. The more I've fallen in love with Jonathan, the more anxious I've become that the shadow passing over the Red Sox this year will touch him, too. As the roster has been decimated one by one, I've silently bargained with whatever baseball deities happen to be listening to leave him alone, and then worried that somehow even imagining the possibility would jinx the situation. You know, the typical insanity of a baseball fan.

And then, right at the peak of happiness on a Friday evening down on the farm, there it was. The absolute worst-case scenario. It happened in front of a horrified Fenway crowd: check. It was an upper-body injury: check. It was an arm injury: check. It was a pitching arm injury: check. It was a pitching arm injury that came on suddenly but was related to his pitching motion: check. Jonathan was in substantial and visible pain and left the game immediately: check.

Let's just say it didn't make me inclined to change some of my more negative attitudes about life.

Nor did the specter of Jon Lester, a vibrant, talented young man in the prime of his life and his physical gifts, now officially diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma. I read about that when I got home from Julia's. That, and about Schilling's injury, which is minor, but still adds to the cosmic piling on.

I made sure to try to find out all the information I could about Lester's case. The good news, everybody said, is that it's a treatable form of cancer. Then I read this:

Treatment often involves some form of chemotherapy, radiation therapy, biologic therapy, or a combination of these. Bone marrow or stem cell transplantation may sometimes be used.

I, like most people in Western civilization, have witnessed what those "treatments" mean firsthand, and had the demonstration done on the body of a loved one. Granted, treatments for cancer have come a very long way even in recent years, and the prognosis on Lester seems good--but he's still going to go through a unique kind of hell on earth. Chemotherapy ain't nothin' to fuck with. A bone marrow transplant isn't exactly an outpatient procedure, either.

I thought about Lester as I know him, a gangly kid with good stuff who still needs to find himself mentally out there on the mound, and then thought about what was going to happen to him. I thought about the ugliness that's invaded the dream world I've been content to inhabit with baseball over the last several years. It isn't that I'm particularly attached to Lester or that I can claim to know what he's going through. But what I can feel is the cruelty of it, the pointless marring of something beautiful--whether it's Lester or Jonathan or our hopes for that mythical next year, which it now seems is being drawn as well into the ravenous black hole this season has become.

A couple nights' sleep and some time to think have mellowed my perspective somewhat. I still watched the game yesterday, and I will still watch today, and tomorrow. I'm doubly determined to do that after hearing the boos at Fenway Park while the Sox were losing yesterday. I want to find and personally chastise every single boo-bird myself. I'll admit I've booed in the past, but this is different. This situation is beyond that. Even Shaughnessy has been forced to acknowledge that we're back to basics, here--wins and losses are officially the least of our concerns. Anyone who still doesn't get that, and also chooses not to encourage but to deride the guys on the field as if that will be productive, is not someone I want on this bandwagon, or in the ballpark, and if I were Queen of the Universe, they wouldn't be.

It also helps that there's been a little bit of good news since then, too. Like a few of the vast list of players on the DL getting rehab starts in Pawtucket and scheduling return dates with the big club. Like the Red Sox' extremely rookie outfielder David Murphy getting his first major-league hit in his first major-league at-bat, one of only three hits against AJ Burnett yesterday. And it especially helps to read that Papi's come back to the clubhouse, though I'm sure I don't even know the half of that feeling when it comes to his teammates:

At 11:27 yesterday morning, the side door to the Red Sox clubhouse burst open, and in strolled a welcome, and much-needed, sight for the players.

After a few steps inside, David Ortiz pulled to a stop, as if on cue, to punctuate his dramatic entrance.

Then he shouted: “So guys, what’s happening?”

A broad smile beamed across his face as he resumed his walk.

Big Papi barely made it across the room to his locker before being swarmed by teammates.

He wasn’t greeted by your ordinary welcome-back handshakes. In fact, there weren’t many handshakes or high-fives at all. Instead, there were plenty of warm, heartfelt hugs. Not quite like the scene of one of his trademark walkoff homers, where he gets pounded on as he’s being hugged at home plate. But it was close.

Julian Tavarez came over first for his bearhug, followed by Manny Delcarmen, Doug Mirabelli and trainer Jim Rowe. Eric Hinske also popped over to say hello. Eventually, GM Theo Epstein stopped over at Ortiz’ locker. He started with a handshake, but he too, wound up embracing Big Papi.

It was a dark night late on Friday and in the wee hours of Saturday. But things do have their way, sometimes, of coming around.

Totally weird to see Nomar in a Dodgers uniform. Somehow even more excruciating to see Arroyo work a scoreless inning in the top of the fifth. I still maintain that the National League has made Arroyo look better than he is, but then he has to go and get away with pitching to the American League. However, it was for just three outs and were it not for a ridiculous catch at shortstop, he might have been screwed.

AL fans, here's our ready-made excuse per MLB.com: Twelve players -- about one-third of the NL roster -- are former American Leaguers. This includes starters Edgar Renteria, Carlos Beltran and Alfonso Soriano.

***

My favorite inning by far was the bottom of the fifth, not only because my West-Coast boyfriend Barry Zito pitched but because David Ortiz actually saved A-Rod's ass with a nice pick at first.

Let me write that again: David Ortiz saved A-Rod's ass with a nice pick at first.

***

I hate that Gatorade commercial with the little-kid voices and bodies on the adult-athlete heads. It freaks me out and it has both Derek Jeter and Peyton Manning in it.

***

Scott Kazmir. I covet hiiiiiiiim.

Did you see his grin coming off the field? It looked like he tried very hard to hold it in and look stoic and dignified, but then he caught sight of a teammate and it just burst across his face.

The mere thought of both him and Jonathan in a Red Sox uniform is enough to make my brain implode.

Want. Want. I lust after Scott Kazmir in a purely baseball sense. (Because in the hormonal sense I generally like guys who look older than, you know, 14.)

***

Okay, I lied. I wish to register another complaint about the pitching selections in this game. I have to say that what's completely screwed up this year's rosters beyond all possible recognition is the mandate that every team should have a representative. That's bullshit. No way should Derrick Turnbow be in the freakin' All Star game. No WAY. If you're the Milwaukee Brewers and you suck, too bad. Get better. Get better players. The All-Star Game should be the best players in the league, period. Not goddamn Derrick Turnbow and his goddamn .500 W-L record and his goddamn 4.74 ERA.

Sure, sure, Derrick Turnbow has 23 saves on the season and a pretty good WHIP. But here's his most recent scouting report on CBS Sportsline:

The trials and tribulations of closer Derrick Turnbow continued Wednesday night. He didn't blow a save, but he did surrender a 10th-inning homer to Adam Dunn that gave Cincinnati a 4-3 lead. Geoff Jenkins got Turnbow off the hook for a loss in the bottom of the 10th when he socked his first homer since May 20. But the fact remains that Turnbow can't get going. In his last three games, Turnbow has two blown saves and what would have been a loss if not for Jenkins' game-tying homer. The day after throwing 30 pitches and suffering his sixth blown save, Turnbow was declared unavailable for duty Tuesday when the Brewers pulled out a 5-2 victory over the Reds. Instead, he worked on ironing out kinks in his delivery with pitching coach Mike Maddux.

Fantasy Analysis

Turnbow has been relegated to being a one-pitch pitcher, unable to get anything but his fastball (sometimes including) over the plate for a strike consistently. Consider reserving him in deeper leagues until he rights himself.

That sound like an All-Star to you? How completely pathetic is it that Turnbow was named to the first pitching roster for the NL and Francisco Liriano had to wait for Jose Contreras to bow out before he could pitch for the AL?

Would I want to have seen a team full of Yankees in their dynasty era? Course not. But the mercy picks are pure bullshit. Bullshit, I say.

***

I'm sure the people behind Jeannie Zelasko's big shiny blue behind really appreciate that she's standing in front of them to interview David Wright's father.

Although how adorable was Wright's dad's revelation that young David once got in a food fight in school and "got one day's in-school suspension"?

How much would you want to kill him if that were your dad?

***

I like what they did with the mowing patterns in the outfield.

***

BJ RYAN HAS A NECK LIKE A SEQUOIA.

But he at least deserves to be here.

***

FOX just played Papi's walkoff from their last Sox Saturday game (yeah, I'm too lazy to look up the date) as part of a Pepsi promo. That was nice of them. But now they're going to have to talk for at least 30 minutes about Derek Jeter's calm eyes just to make up for it, I bet.

Also, there's something creepy and unappealing about FOX's enthusiasm over the Ortiz blast. At least when Trup and Castig or RemDawg and Orsillo get excited about a play that's good for the Red Sox you have a sense they're genuine. The FOX excitement is palpably one of "This is GREAT for our RATINGS!!"

***

I hate to laugh at anything, commercial or otherwise, that exploits and degrades little people. It just makes me uncomfortable. But I have to say the Burger King commercial where the dwarf foreman does that little two-finger point to his eyes and then to the dwarf subordinate's eyes and then back to his own eyes cracks me up. I can't help it. I guess funny is funny, even if it's in the midst of cringeworthy "De plane! De plane!" references.

***

Top of the ninth, two on, two out, 0-2 to Michael Young, and a mighty triple to right field. This is actually an...exciting game? With like lead changes and stuff? Wow.

Double wow: Mariano Rivera is warming in the AL bullpen. Steinbrenner's gotta be choking on his Cream of Wheat. That's just what the MFY need--some more pitches on that aging arm.

***

Aww, the look on that Pittsburgh batboy's face after Michael Young passed by, mobbed by his AL teammates? Aww.

***

You know, if I am to find myself rooting in this bizarro world for any Yankee, I would prefer it be Mariano Rivera. I don't know if this a jinx on him or not. I mean, remember when a bunch of Boston fans rooted for the Yanks in 2001 because of 9/11 and everything. That didn't appear to help them any.

It's weird, because Rivera's face and mannerisms are almost as familiar to me as my own guys'. There's a weird queasy sense of comfort in cheering him on.

Okay, I'm quitting this train of thought before a lynch mob shows up at my house.

***

Okay, I will say this. That first swing-and-miss to Carlos Lee reminded me of Jonathan. I only hope Jonathan can still be doing that when he's, like, 450 years old like Rivera is.

So rooting for a Yankee served its purpose. The AL is victorious and I feel pretty smug about it, especially since the NL got so close and then blew it. Ha ha, they totally suck.

Whoa. It was a nice game and everything, but it appears to be making me channel a Yankees fan. Time for bed.

I was touched by the ceremony honoring Roberto Clemente between the fourth and fifth innings of tonight's game. If you don't know much about Roberto Clemente (and I'm not saying I know all that much myself) a great place to start learning more is this book excerpt from SI. (If you're not a subscriber, try bugmenot.) Or hit up a subscriber. Or find a back issue. Whatever. It's a worthwhile article.

May 20, 2006

It's official: I have now seen more games having nothing to do with the Red Sox, in ballparks far away from Boston, than I have watched or listened to in any form for the Olde Towne Team this week.

Tonight found me in Columbus, OH, on a trip to visit my sister (who is a veterinary student at THE Ohio State University--and not a word out of you, Sam), who, knowing how much I love baseball, got us tickets to the nearest ballpark. Said ballpark, Cooper Stadium, is home to the AAA affiliate of the New York Yankees, the Columbus Clippers.

And yes. I did, in fact, take some shit for the RED SOX 2004 WORLD CHAMPIONS T-shirt I wore into the place (you also have to understand that most of my t-shirt wardrobe says RED SOX on it somewhere). Some guy who was with a group of people my sister knew said I had some nerve wearing it, and I said I'd wear it into Yankee Stadium, to which he responded that I was a bandwagon fan, to which I said I wasn't going to dignify that with a response. Then a little kid who was with the group said something about "We have 25 championships and you only have one." I didn't have the heart to correct his precious little frontrunning self on the precise numbers, but I did say, "You don't have any since you've been alive."

"She's tough," my sister said, by way of apology, and I went back to keeping my scoresheet. Since keeping score earlier this week at Wrigley, I've gotten into it. It helps me keep better track of the game and remember it better, too.

So, tonight, I finally witnessed a walk-off win in person. Too bad it was for a team I care nothing about except for their associated Major League club. But still, it was a hard-fought, back-and-forth game--it wasn't until there were two down in the bottom of the eleventh that the Toledo Mud Hens made what I consider the crucial error, what the baseball-inclined have called the "crisis" of the game: with two balls on Clippers third baseman Russ Johnson, who remained 0-fer even given five previous at-bats, with one out and one on in the bottom of the eleventh, the pitcher threw the next two balls intentionally, giving Johnson a pass.

This intentional walk essentially meant that the Hens were gambling that they could avoid having to face former Tigers first baseman Carlos Pena, a run-of-the-mill major leaguer who was still a man among boys in AAA, with two spectacular home runs on the night in back-to-back at-bats. The Hens were also saying they'd be able to secure the two final outs before Pena's turn by earning an out on the owner of the other Clippers homer on the evening, Terrence Long, another journeyman major leaguer whose last known big league address was Kansas City.

Which, surprisingly, they did, on a sinking liner snapped up by the shortstop. I thought there might be a method to their madness after all as they faced right fielder Robert Stratton, another Clipper boasting a goose egg for his five plate appearances. But then Stratton worked a walk, and here came the big man. Pena promptly singled to shallow left, driving in second baseman and erstwhile New York Met Danny Garcia for the walkoff win, and what could have looked like a kind of harebrained genius merely remained an inexplicable move in retrospect--such is the essential risk of baseball.

Pena was briefly mobbed at first, and then the players hurried off the field into the dugout while what few of us remained in the stands hurried toward the gates. Even among those who had stuck it out to cheer for the only team in town, there was hardly the delirium I'd expected with such a finish.

But it was still baseball, and along the way I did hear that we beat our so-called "natural rivals" in Philly for the second time tonight. Also from what I hear, Philly is a good team this year, so I'm proud to hear we've been victorious (but it's also reported the Yankees overcame a 4-0 deficit to win over the Mets this afternoon, so we need to keep the Phanatics' feet to the fire tomorrow night).

April 30, 2006

I don't read Dirt Dogs too often anymore, but I guess there's a strong campaign, centered there on the Web, to get Sox fans not to boo Johnny Damon. Castiglione and Remy put in their lobby for Johnny to get cheered during today's game as well.

Meanwhile, there are others who have made incredibly strong and articulate arguments as to why Damon should get booed to kingdom come.

In any event, the debate (what I've heard of it--I don't listen to talk radio too much anymore, either, but I'm sure this subject has burned up the phone lines over there) has taken on the proportions of those circular political arguments, the ones in which one side thinks the other gives it a bad name. No one can control what the entire crowd at Fenway will do, but most people have strong feelings on Johnny's departure and re-signing with the Yankees, and will have a strong reaction to his reappearance at Fenway in a Yankees uniform. And each side wants their reaction to be the one that gets represented--each side wants their feelings to dictate the reception Johnny receives, and moreover, thinks that if that doesn't happen, they as Sox fans and Sox fans in general will look bad.

Because to people who blame the front office for not offering Johnny Damon the money he wanted for his departure, and say it's only natural he'd take the best offer, Yankees or no Yankees, booing him is an overly simplistic, childish way to look at things--booing and blaming only the guy you can see right in front of you, rather than the other people who may have been complicit.

But to people who blame Johnny Damon for not taking the "hometown discount" and then signing with the team's mortal enemy, for anyone to expect him NOT to be booed--mankind still has free will, after all, and he knows or should know precisely what he's getting into--is disingenous and an insult to true fans who are passionate enough not to care about the reasons and rationales and explanations. And to cheer the guy, in these fans' minds, amounts to the Red Sox submitting to the Yankees, to their continued fiscal clout in the league, and their propaganda about "class".

So what do I think will happen?

Neither. Both. Neither booing nor cheering will be overwhelming or even in the majority--you can tell by how strongly and evenly the fans are divided outside the ballpark. There will be some who stand and cheer, looking around and glaring at the others who don't join them; there will be others who stand, cup their hands around their mouths and boo with all their might, and glaring back at those who cheer. And overall, the sound in the park will be loud, but mixed--as mixed, when push comes to shove, as our feelings.

But that's kind of a cop-out, I admit. What do I wish to happen? Which side am I on?

I'm with Iain, when he says, "I really don't care what we do - boo, cheer, roll out the red carpet, light fireworks, bring in champagne and naked cheerleaders, whatever - as long as we win the ballgame."

April 29, 2006

Today's must-read: Jeff Horrigan's details on the reign of terror over the Devil Rays that has only recently ended.

Last night's game reached a level of incomprehensible suckitude, but luckily, I wasn't able to watch it. Meanwhile, Red's post pretty much sums 'er up. Well, except for that whole Blossom thing. I really can't vouch for that.

April 08, 2006

I'm not kidding. The second baseman for your Indianapolis Indys, last night in their 9-1 rout of the PawSox, was named Gookie Dawkins.

We couldn't stop saying it. "Gookie. The Gookster. Gook-a-rama." In the end, though technically the PawSox were "our team", we were cheering for Gookie.

"If he were Coco Crisp's brother," someone finally came up with, "He'd be Gookie Crisp."

This cracked us up. The two men sitting in front of us shifted in their seats a bit, but otherwise we blended right in, at this stadium where tickets cost less than a movie and you never know when there might be fireworks on a routine fly ball to right field.

What is it with baseball and names, anyway? Football players have names like Ben and Tom and Matt and Brett. But in baseball, there's Gookie. There's Pokey. There's Coco. There's Vladimir and Ivan and, where appropriate, Frankie and Boomer and Big Papi. All the way back in history, baseball players have some absolutely ridiculous names. You have to wonder, what are the odds of little boys being raised to play baseball, being talented enough to make it to the majors, and also having unusual names?

These are the things you ruminate on as you watch your team's AAA affiliate get manhandled, largely thanks to someone who's supposed to be shoring up your big club's rotation.

Wells did not look good, to put it mildly. The crowd tried to rally behind him, hollering encouragement and starting chants in his favor in the early going, even as he gave up four runs by the second inning. In the fourth frame, as he took the mound again in what had become a Sisyphean task, the crowd was still attempting to be supportive, with a strong chorus of "Here we go Boom-ah, Here we go." Clap. Clap.

This lasted until his first pitch of the inning to Yurendell de Caster (I promise I am not making these names up--there is also a man on the Indys with the last name of Furmaniak), which the young Indianapolis journeyman promptly sent bouncing off the "mini-monster" in straightaway center, above the yellow line for a home run.

"We want a pitch-er, not a belly itch-er," came a child's voice from somewhere to our right.

After that, what had already been a relaxed atmosphere became downright rowdy. We joked about names, and the people behind us, one of whom was a British gentleman who was enjoying McCoy Stadium's house ale immensely, hollered nonsensical things at the field. The guys in front of us, who had apparently wanted to actually watch the game, finally left (the PawSox were down 7 to 1 by the fifth, anyway, after the right fielder inexplicably let a routine fly ball drop just next to him. By the time the ball was relayed through several cutoff men all the way to third, two Indys had crossed the plate. This, in combination with the fact that it had only just stopped furiously raining about five minutes before the first pitch, meant the stands were all but empty.

We lounged with our feet over the backs of the seats in front of us, watching Mike Holtz wobble through the top of the ninth inning, which seemed to go on forever, even with an umpire calling bullshit strikes because he was just as cold and tired of it as the rest of us. We hollered plenty of crap at Holtz, and I could only imagine him fuming, hearing heckling from people who could never do what he does. But I don't know what they can hear, what they block out. You have to figure when they get to this level hecklers in the stands don't matter much.

I had never met most of the people I was with--a coworker of mine had invited us along with him and some of his friends to the game. The girl to my right told me she's from Philadelphia, and as with the Giants fan out in San Diego, we compared some notes. The difference here is that this girl is actually living in Boston, and working in promotions for one of our major radio stations, and so she's going to have tickets to Fenway for the first time next week.

She told me she had looked at apartments in the Fens, but was asked by the realtor, "Do you like the Red Sox?"

When she answered no, she said the realtor actually told her she shouldn't live there.

"Can you believe it?" she said. "That was her first question."

I told her I figured it was because if she lived so close to the park and wasn't a fan herself, game nights would only make her lose sleep and irritate her--and not in the fun way the rest of us who are fans so enjoy. But, yeah, I told her, just goes to show ya.

I forget how it came up, but she also said something about hoping it was like this--relaxed and profane and boisterous--at Fenway, and I reacted as if she'd told me she hoped she could drive a propane truck over Niagara Falls and hope to float to safety.

"No way," I said. "I would never act like this at Fenway."

"Really?" she said, surprised.

And it's true. In fact, I've even been feeling strange about it, these ballgames I've been to like a warmup for the real thing, ballgames where I still shoot the shit with whoever's next to me--ballgames where the person next to me is from anywhere else, where the person next to me isn't already on the same exact paragraph, let alone page, that I am. Ballgames where I heckle and taunt and get the giggles over a name like "Gookie."

It's not that I'm always perfectly somber at Sox games, but it has struck me how different it is. It's true: I would never act the way I did at the PawSox game or even the San Diego game at Fenway. At Fenway, at least, in my experience, you are expected to be paying attention. You are permitted to yell, provided it's in reaction to something dramatic happening on the field. You are permitted conversation, so long as it is brief and also concerns action on the field. A conversation like the last two I've had at other ballparks, comparing notes and just shooting the shit, would've gotten us dirty looks at Fenway. At least, like I said, in my experience.

I explained all this to the girl from Philadelphia. "Thanks for the tip," she said.

You could definitely call what I've been watching in the last week real baseball, but it hasn't been that Baseball with a capital B. All it's done is whet my appetite for Fenway, and the Red Sox, and the third game of their opening series against the Blue Jays, Thursday at 7:05 p.m. So far, the projected starter for that game (if I figure correctly) is my man Schilling.

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